German Greens' Robert Habeck to lead bruised party into elections

Berlin: Germany's Greens have been environmental trailblazers but their top candidate, Robert Habeck, goes into snap national elections bruised by three stormy years in government that ended in a political crisis.

Habeck's party is set on Sunday to nominate the 55-year-old as their lead candidate in February's federal polls -- at a time when the Greens are limping along with approval ratings of around 11 percent, down from the 20.5 percent score they won in the 2019 European Parliament elections.

Habeck, a father-of-four and a children's book author with a PhD in literature and philosophy, hails from the windswept coastal state of Schleswig-Holstein near the Danish border.

He entered Olaf Scholz's three-party coalition as vice chancellor in 2021, when the Greens were riding high and the Fridays for Future movement started by Greta Thunberg made the climate crisis a top political issue.

Habeck also assumed the post of minister for the economy and climate action, with ambitious plans to decarbonise Europe's biggest economy.

He achieved some notable successes.

A steady increase in wind and solar power raised the share of renewables to more than half of Germany's electricity production in 2023, and above 60 percent in the first half of this year.

But the ruling coalition soon faced multiple crises -- from the Covid pandemic to responding to Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which ended the flow of cheap Russian gas to Germany.

Habeck was forced to quickly shop around for alternative energy sources, asking Gulf suppliers for gas, slowing Germany's nuclear phase-out and extending the life span of coal-fired power plants.

'Prohibition party'

For the Greens, this was a radical departure from their clean energy goals.

Berlin's commitment to build up its armed forces also spelled a reversal of the party's long-standing pacifist tradition.

German military aid for Kyiv, second only to US backing for Ukraine, was forcefully defended by Habeck and Green Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

Habeck, a latecomer to politics from the party's "realist" wing, has pushed back against "fundamentalists" who have criticised what they see as betrayals of the Greens' orthodoxy since its beginnings in the protest movements of the 1970s and 80s.

But the most damaging attacks have come from conservative quarters, which have hammered home the accusation that the Greens are an elitist party of moralising ecological do-gooders.

If the Greens had their way, the right-wing narrative goes, Germans would have to swap their beloved petrol and diesel cars for cargo bicycles, and their bratwurst for planet-friendly vegetarian meals.

"The Greens were very quickly labelled the 'prohibition party' by their detractors," said Marie Krpata of the French Institute of International Relations.

In particular, the conservative CDU, current frontrunners in the polls, have painted them as "the embodiment of regulation and bureaucracy that impacts citizens and businesses", she said.

'Time for Change'

Habeck suffered his most damaging attacks in 2023 when the tabloid press savaged his plan to ban new gas and oil boilers for domestic use, labelling it a costly "heating hammer" for household incomes.

The proposal was scrapped and Habeck admitted he had "gone too far", but the damage was done.

In state elections in ex-Communist eastern states in September this year, the Greens scored in the single digits while the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) booked strong gains.

The AfD's key demand is to dramatically cut immigration.

But it also questions climate change and rails against wind farms, electric vehicles and the closure of coal mines.

Poor election results for all three coalition partners deepened a sense of foreboding and fuelled the warring between Scholz's Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP).

When it all ended in tears last week, with the SPD and FDP leaders trading bitter recriminations for the break-up, Habeck said more sombrely that, although the end was inevitable, "it feels wrong".

Ever the optimist, he also sought to label the collapse as a new beginning.

As the February election campaign kicks off, Habeck has published a video on social media site X showing him at home, humming the tune of a German pop song called "Time for Something to Change".

Eagle-eyed observers spotted a tiny inscription on the bracelet he was wearing that reflected Habeck's belief in a brighter future for his party -- the tiny letters spell out the German words for "Chancellor Era".